COLUMN: “A chance to demand better this Thursday”
“As we reach the final stretch of the campaign, I want to say a massive thank you to all those who have supported me so far, especially those who have only made up their minds recently.
I am enormously grateful to see a groundswell of support to send a local lad to Parliament to ensure our wonderful constituency isn’t forgotten about by grey suits in Whitehall.
Our campaign has focused on the issues that matter in communities like ours: tackling the cost-of-living crisis by insulating people’s homes, ending the sewage dumping scandal and overturning the collapse of rural healthcare services.
We have been the only party to focus on fixing social care. Experts tell us it’s the only way to help our overwhelmed A&E departments. A staggering 37% of Powys Council’s budget goes on social care alone. Our plans for free care at the point of use, a higher minimum wage for care workers and £210m extra a year for social care in Wales would help ease the burden.
On my recent visit to Llanfyllin Medical Centre, managers warmly welcomed these ideas as well as our plans to introduce a rural GP funding top-up that recognises the additional challenges for practices delivering care to patients spread over hundreds of miles.
I would lobby for as many services as possible to be delivered locally and to improve the performance of Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals.
But health also comes from a good diet, the comfort of a warm, affordable roof over our heads and a thriving natural environment.
Our manifesto has been recognised as the most effective of all the major parties at lifting the poorest out of hardship, taxing the very richest to deliver it rather than ordinary working people.
Our national food strategy shows we understand our food system needs to be re-shaped holistically to ensure food security and end food poverty. Re-negotiating the Australia and New Zealand trade deals would level the playing field again for our farmers and make sure the food on our tables is of the highest quality.
We’d reverse Welsh Labour’s cuts to rural bus routes and campaign to cancel their cuts to Cambrian Line services, recognising that to attract more investment into the area we need better infrastructure, not worse.
Ensuring all rural homes have Gigabit broadband would allow entrepreneurs to take advantage of changing working habits that offer a real chance of rejuvenating rural communities.
The natural environment draws people here and I will fight to protect it. We have led the campaign against raw sewage being dumped into our rivers and seas and I will stand up to both the UK Government and Welsh Government who have allowed this to happen.
It’s a long list but it is achievable. The Liberal Democrats understand rural areas in a way Labour simply never will; we have a long history here in Montgomeryshire.
A vote for me this Thursday is a vote for a hard-working local champion for every one of you here in Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr.
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